


Let Go of My Hand

by stardropdream (orphan_account)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time you kill is always the hardest, always the first one to shatter everything. In the midst of it, Alfred is unprepared for the first time he kills, and in those quick moments must come to terms with the sacrifices necessary for freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Go of My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ August 31, 2010.

  
It happens far too quickly for Alfred to react. Things dull away to unquestionable things, to things he’s not meant to remember or just refuses to remember. But there are things he cannot forget. It was raining that day, too. The raindrops don’t infiltrate the thick forest, and it is only the occasional drop that slips past thick pine trees and splatters on top of soldiers’ heads.   
  
Alfred can hear them. The enemy. Once people he’d considered his own, but now only people an ocean away. They stood out starkly in the dark forest, those lobster backs. They clomped through the forest, separated from their officers and their shooting line. Alfred and his men threw everything about warfare into question, and that was how they were beginning to win the upper hand. It was Alfred’s time actually being with his people, clutching his musket and bayonet with a death-like grip. Until now, he’d been in the background, with the higher-ups. Once they learned who he was, they were nervous about letting him fight. But he’d managed to convince Washington, and now here he was, in the darkened forest. His lungs burn.   
  
The clumping of red-coats is coming closer, and Alfred and his fellow militiamen hide in wait. Alfred’s heart thrums with the excitement of war (perhaps something else, but he refuses to acknowledge it). The rain falls as a twig snaps somewhere near Alfred, and Alfred nearly jumps out of his skin. But the next moment a lobster-back is there, tripping in the darkness, looking bewildered and lost. When their eyes lock, Alfred springs and plunges with a startled cry only muffled by the English soldier’s cry of shock, then pain. He strikes—  
  
The man in the red coat chokes on nothing, too startled to react past that small, muffled shock. His jaw goes slack and his mouth falls open, and his hands grope pathetically at the blade in his gut. His face is wide and shocked, and Alfred memorizes his features without even realizing—a square jaw, slim lips, long nose, thick eyebrows, deep forehead, swept-back hair. He could be anyone. He is no one. In the last moments, his every little movement is recorded in Alfred’s mind’s eye forever.   
  
His bayonet remains nestled in the man’s gut effortlessly. It’d been so effortless just to squeeze away this man’s life. He is not dead yet, but there is a watery cough, and Alfred knows that his enemy is slipping away into death. The man gurgles, gropes feebly again at the weapon in his body, and then ducks his head as he dies. He slumps forward, and crashes into Alfred. Blood stains Alfred’s uniform—  
  
His first kill. He’d seen the effects of wars on his land, but Arthur had never let him fight before. Not back then. He knew he would kill, eventually, that he would have to, if he were to be free from Arthur. He’d never killed before. But now—  
  
Alfred does not scream, does not cry. Not right away. He does not move away from the man as the dead body tenses up against him, lying against him. Alfred’s knees eventually give out and he falls to the ground, the dead man on top of him. Raindrops splatter on his face and he stares up, unable or unwilling to look down and face the empty corpse of a man he’d killed.   
  
On the damp ground, his entire body tenses up and before he can stop himself, he turns his head and vomits. He cries out in agony, but the men in his troop have moved forward to catch the other wayward soldiers, and will not return to search for soldiers until all the lobster-backs are killed.   
  
Alfred muffles a quiet scream, does not want to alert anyone to his presence. His hands shake and he tries to push the body off him, but he’s on top of him, and his face is right next to Alfred’s, twisted in agony, his face deceptively like—  
  
Alfred vomits again, though there is nothing in his stomach to vomit up. He stays there until he manages to pull his bayonet out, with some struggling, and blood pours out onto his uniform, staining the simple farmer’s garb until it is unrecognizable and reeks—a well of lifeblood run dry.   
  
And the vomit and screams are done, but soon Alfred feels the tears running down his face and cannot blame it on the rain high above me. He struggles, making incoherent noises as he shoves the body off him, scrambles away until he hits a tree, his entire body panting. He feels like a cornered animal, his eyes wild and roving. The body does not move. He is alone, covered in another’s blood. The blood of England’s people.   
  
This is what he’ll need to do, in order to be free.  
  
He knows this.  
  
Alfred wipes away his tears in shame, tries to wipe the blood off his uniform and knows it’s hopeless. He clenches his eyes shut, tries to pretend everything is okay. He feels something in his chest heave, shift, shatter—  
  
And then he feels nothing.


End file.
